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I tried Audacity and Reaper and thought they were good but, at the recommendation of another user (can't remember who now) I downloaded the 14 day trial version of Mixcraft 5 by Acoustica. The 14 day trial is fully functional. After the trial period, you lose the ability to mixdown and produce CD's. Within a couple days I bought the full license for $75. Pretty cheap for what it does. Instructional videos available on YouTube too.

It's alot like Garage Band but for the PC. You can get it here........

Nice! Now please watch out for people blaming people for cracking programs when they are not. Not only is it really annoying but it also looks to the other viewers like your question has been answered...I had a problem with this yesterday. I bought my full version of Addictive Drums and I get 2 AD packs free..lucky me!

Some of the companies off 'educational discounts' on the software. It's often ok simply to have someone in your family in some educational facility - it doesn't have to be you. You can get very good discounts if you check it out. Illegal software will kill the industry. People won't continue to produce the software if everybody is using knock-offs. I don't work if I don't get paid - doubt if you're any different. Software developers are no different to us. Support them please - it's in all of our interest!

Y'know, that's one of those lovely theories until you start looking at the actual facts and seeing the REASONS for the use of knock-offs. A piece of music software turns up on 4 DVDS in a box. No manual - it's a PDF on a DVD. Cost of 4 blank DVDs, retail - £1, Brit money. Cost of printing a box, again retail - about 30 Brit pence. So you've just paid several hundreds of whatever currency you use to buy £1.30's worth of raw materials.

Now THAT kinda markup is something even Apple's Steve Jobs would applaud, rest him in peace.

I don't mind paying for something. I DO, however, object to being right royally ripped off. I know you've gotta put development costs onto the price - but don't forget the development costs for Version 2 are being met from the profits from Version One and so on. Now if you could buy something for £1.30 - less than 3 bucks - and sell it for over $300, you'd howl if your profits were being eaten into. But the fact is, they're grossly overdone in the first place.

Smuggling's always been for the same reason - people refusing to be ripped off for something. If they see the price as fair, they're less likely to buy the smugglers' wares. As soon as software companies stop their huge rip-offs in the name of 'profit', the sooner the smugglers - 'pirates' - will look less inviting. At the moment, if you want to write computer music, they're often our greatest resource.